


Judgement

by Whuffie



Series: The Harried Herald and her Merry Misfits [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, F/M, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whuffie/pseuds/Whuffie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contains spoilers.  A drabble about Blackwall and the Inquisitor's turmoil after she learns why he went mysteriously missing.  Mentions of the Cullen relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Judgement

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t normally write first person, but I’ve been listening/reading Charlaine Harris, Carrie Vaughn and Jim Butcher for about a year. All three authors write their books first person, so this is a fun exercise outside of the norm to me. It also got me out of a problem that there’s no actual “canon Inquisitor” in my head.

I trusted him; believed in him. He was family to me, like a brother who never talked much, but always had my back. Without fail, he went almost everywhere with me. The jingle of his armor, smell of his sweat, and the unique tread of his boots were almost as familiar to me as my own hands. I seldom worried when he was there, because I knew I could count on him. He was honorable, and I thought I knew him.

When he told that horrible story about the dog, my insides twisted up. I’ve always loved animals, but Skyhold isn’t the most hospitable place for pets. There was something about the way he talked about that mongrel which made me wince. Too much self loathing bubbled behind it, but I’d thought it was because we’d been drinking. It doesn’t always bring out the best people, and the Warden life has never sounded very easy. I didn’t think there was anything more to it, or how personal it really was until he left.

Right now, I need someone to tell me what’s best, but Cullen has been the only one who truly understands. I think the others try, but they all look at me as the one who leads them first. I’ve told them a hundred times and ways that I’m not marked by Andraste or the Maker. I’m me. Me, a mage from the Circle before all the trouble began. Me, who happened to pick up an orb because in a split instant I thought that if I grabbed it and ran, a monster wouldn’t have access to it. No one ever accused me of being the sharpest ink on the page, but there it was. That’s what started it all, but I’ve done the best I can to stop our world from being torn to shreds. So many people, and all of them are looking at me.

I hate it, but we’ve managed.  I've survived so far. There were times it was by the skin of my teeth, but we haven’t lost anyone I’ve known well since Haven. The blizzard came close, and had I been out there any longer, it would have killed me. Cullen’s hands were under my arms, pulling me up out of the snow. I think I fell in love with him right there, because I knew that he’d never give up on me. The reasons were different then, because I was someone he accepted as his leader, possibly marked by the Maker. We needed time to let the rest grow into friendship and then something more. I still knew. I worry for him, but he must feel the same way about me. We’re in a war. Every sweet breath may be our last, but I don’t want to lose him.

I find myself thinking of Cole, but he can’t read me like he can others who hurt. The odd spirit-boy might have been able to instinctively pin the pain and ease it somehow in the strange way he does if he could see into my emotions as he does others. There’s no help there, and although Cullen is supportive of me, he’s said he can’t tell me what to do. I’m the Inquisitor. That means I’m supposed to have all the answers.

I don’t. Blackwall is my friend, and now I don’t know what to do.

Cassandra, Leliana, Josephine, Varric, Dorian, Bull and all the others might listen if I go to them, but ultimately I’m alone. At best they might advise, at worst get me so drunk I wouldn’t care. There’s still a barrier that puts me apart from them. I almost liked it better when Cassandra was yelling and threatening me the way she did when we first met. At least there weren’t responsibilities strangling me. Leliana might have been thinking about throttling me back then, but things were undeniably much simpler.

I sigh, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Finding myself in front of the stables, I smile faintly as my horse nudges my pockets. He’s looking for a slice of apple or lump of sugar. I spoil him too much, but he’s taken good care of me. I stroke his long nose and stare into gentle brown eyes flecked with Ferelden pride. “You knew him, too. Blackwall lived here since we came to Skyold, didn’t he? You’d know how to judge him.” My eyes are wet. The Herald of Andraste isn’t supposed to be upset, but Coffee wouldn’t tell anyone. “I don’t want to judge him,” I confide as a long velvet nose rubs against a cheek streaked with tears. “He’s done only good since I knew him. I can’t do this,” I whispered miserably.

“Inquisition?”

I spun around, almost falling on my rear on the loose hay. That would have been a great image to project. Andraste’s Chosen tripping over her own feet and landing ankles over tea kettle with her face in the steaming pile of horse manure. I was just about to snap something sarcastic when the odd way he said my title and his voice registered. It was horse master Dennet, and I hastily rubbed my face. I tried to pretend it was to get the hair out of it, but I think he knew better.

“Something wrong, Inquisition?” He opened up the stable door to take a look at Coffee, coaxing the horse to lift a front hoof for inspection.

“No.” The answer was automatic, but I’m too honest. “Yes. Everything’s wrong.” I hadn’t meant to say it, but he was one of the few people in the entire castle who didn’t walk around like I needed rose petals thrown at my feet or should be feared. “I – I have to make a hard decision.”

He looked up at me, folding his arms over the stable door. Coffee put his head over and I scratched under his fetlock.

“Seems you do a lot of that,” Dennet answered gruffly. “You’re young to do all that you have.”

Maker’s breath, his daughter was about my age, wasn’t she? I would have normally argued my age, but I remember her and the horse races. When your child is in her late twenties or early thirties, it must make everyone that age seem younger. The idea made him seem easier to talk to. “I’m supposed to have all the answers.” Leaning down, I press my forehead against Coffee’s. “I don’t. Not really. I do the best I can, but people die when I make mistakes. Now it’s my friend whose life I have to worry about. That shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. I have to be his judge, and I know he’s done wrong. If he was someone else, I’d have called him guilty without much reluctance. I know him, and I know he’s a good man. He’s been trying to make up for his crimes for a long time. Everything I’ve known about him has been decent. Every time I’ve needed him he’s been there without question or hesitation. I don’t want to be his judge.”

“Why are you, then?”

“Because there might be some way to save him. We’ve lost too much since Haven, but it’s more than that. He’s good. I know he is. If I didn’t do something at whatever risk it took, he’d have hanged. I just couldn’t let that happen. It would have…” It would have broken my heart, but I didn’t finish.

“Well then,” Dennet said at length, handing me a brush for Coffee’s coat. I don’t think he believed in being idle. I started to stroke my horse’s happily twitching skin until his fur shone glossy beneath the attention. “Seems to me you’re only human.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” I grumbled, picking a burr out of Coffee’s mane.

“No, but that’s a problem isn’t it? Other people think you’re Andraste’s herald.”

I smiled faintly and pressed a cheek against Coffee’s warm ribs, listening to the bellows of lungs. They forgot I was just a person. Cullen was different, and he knew. The way he believed in me was different. It was more wholesome and better grounded. I believed in him exactly the same way. He didn’t need a magical mark on his hand to close Fade Rifts for it. The others sometime forgot in all the glamor of the silly anchor embedded in my hand.

“My friend is only a person, too.” Looking at it like that made it seem a little easier; not much, but a little. Fragile, stubborn, tormented, and full of mistakes, Blackwall was only human. Denett didn’t say anything, and kept tending Coffee’s hooves.

Blackwall deserved to atone, and by the Maker if I could make it happen I was going to. “Thank you,” I told the horse master with a fiery grin which was mostly teeth. “Thank you for listening.”

“Any time, Inquisition.” There was something knowing in his return smile, and a wisdom in the quiet man that I hadn’t recognized before.

It was time for me to sit on a throne of judgement for Blackwall, and I was ready.


End file.
